


http://stanford.edu/incoming-freshmen/class-of-2009.php

by prairiegrass



Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2019-04-16 08:32:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14160861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prairiegrass/pseuds/prairiegrass
Summary: In his time as an English grad student at Stanford, Jared's become used to the snotty, dismissive attitudes of CS majors taking the literature courses required for their gen eds. Richard’s just trying to make it through freshman English without embarrassingly stuttering his way through discussion with (or throwing up all over) its impossibly charming TA.





	1. Chapter 1

Richard chucked his luggage onto one of the two twin-sized beds before flopping alongside it himself. The other bed in the small, square room was already made up in check-patterned sheets and Harry Potter-themed blankets and throws, though his actual roommate -- Nelson Bighetti, a fellow CS major according to the online portal listing the dorm assignments, and a Hufflepuff according to the decor -- was nowhere to be seen.

Still lying on his back, he dug out his phone from his pants pocket, flipped it open, and navigated to the SMS thread between him and Mom. He held it up above his face to type the message, tapping it out in T9 on the numbered keypad.

_Made it._

With two staccato buzzes, the device returned his mom’s reply.

_Ok! Sorry we couldn’t be there. Have fun and learn a lot! Love you <3_

Richard flipped it closed and brought the back of his hand to his forehead. As far as lifestyle changes went, this would probably be the most drastic he’s undergone. Away from Oklahoma, away from its family and friends. But also, _finally_ among other smart people. People who were smarter than _him_ , probably. And in the cradle of tech innovation, at that.

Time, of course, was still moving forward even as he considered all this, and the luggage wasn’t going to unpack itself. He heaved himself up from the bare twin bed and unlatched the first suitcase. This one held clothes for each season, and he grabbed several articles to store in the narrow dresser next to his bed. When he opened its drawers, though, he found that they were already stuffed full. His expression twisted in puzzlement and annoyance -- did this Nelson guy really take both dressers? What a fucking douche. He sat the clothes in his arms back on top of the pile in his suitcase, and walked across the room in a few strides to pull open the other dresser’s drawers, but this one was entirely empty. Wait, so he took the bed on this side but the dresser on the other? Maybe the guy isn’t an asshole after all, just an idiot.

Well, Richard would rather have his own dresser next to his own bed, so, he decided, he would just switch them around. The empty dresser was easy enough to move, and he settled it next to the other, ready to scoot into place once he got that one moved over. The stuffed-full dresser was a lot more of a challenge for a scrawny kid like him to maneuver, though, and as he strained to carry it, arms wrapped around its perimeter, the room’s door opened.

A shaggy-haired kid with a blank expression and a Big Gulp in hand, and an older guy carrying a stack of textbooks, entered the room. Richard, red-faced and panting, unceremoniously dropped the dresser in the middle of the floor.

“Hey, uh, Nelson, right?” Richard wiped the gathering sweat from his face and tried to lean casually on one arm atop the other kid’s dresser. “I noticed that you took the other bed, but you took this dresser? Don’t you think, don’t you think it would have made more sense to take the dresser that was _right next to your bed_?”

His voice was unpleasantly choked and strained from the effort he’d exerted. _Great first impression, Richard_. He hadn’t even properly introduced himself. Nelson didn’t seem offended, though, just kept that blank look for long seconds as he sucked his drink up through the straw.

“Oh, yeah, I guess that makes sense.”

The man with the textbooks walked over to one desk -- the one that was on the same side of the room as Nelson’s bed, Richard was thankful to notice -- and set them atop it.

“Well, I’ll get out of your hair and let you two meet, then. Good luck in school, Brown Bear.”

“Love you, Papa Bear,” Nelson hugged -- it must have been his dad, then -- goodbye, and then it was just the two of them.

Richard wiped his sweaty hand across his jeans before offering it to his roommate. “Sorry about that little, dresser fiasco. I’m Richard.”

Nelson moved his drink to hold it in one hand, dangerously by the lid with his fingertips, and met Richard’s handshake with the other. “Big Head.”

“What?” Richard was self-conscious of many of his traits, to be sure, but the size of his head hadn’t been among them before now.

“That’s me. I’m Big Head.”

“Oh. Good to meet you, then, Big Head.”

“Nice to meet you, roomie.” Big Head moved away to his desk, set down his drink, and started to arrange his effects.

“Uh, hey, how about helping me move this thing?”

“Oh, yeah, ok.”

He didn’t seem to be of much more athletic build than Richard, but between the two of them they were able to get the furniture arranged, a lot more easily than Richard would have on his own. Richard resumed his unpacking, emptying the first suitcase into the dresser then moving on to the next.

This one held his bedding, which he fitted to the bed, his toiletries, which he stored beneath it -- his dorm hall shared a communal bathroom, so it wasn’t like he could store them there -- and his school supplies and electronics. He set up the small TV on the edge of his desk and hooked up his PS2 to it, setting his DS next to the console. His laptop he set at the desk’s center, and his textbooks and notebooks and folders and pencils on the other side.

“Hey, I guess there’s a welcome event tonight at the student union. Wanna go? It says there’s free food.”

It wasn’t in Richard’s plans, but free food _was_ appealing, and it would be a good opportunity to bond with Big Head. He was gonna be living with the guy in this tiny room for the next year, after all. So Richard agreed to tag along.

Out in the dorm floor’s common area, a gaggle of students was gathered around an upperclassman. He had glasses and dark auburn hair in a rather long style on a man. On his arm was a tattoo of an inverse cross, and he was dressed in black from head to toe. Jesus, Richard could smell the pot smoke wafting from his room as he passed by -- what the hell was this guy doing as an RA?

“Since the university seems to think you’re all somehow smart enough to be admitted to Stanford but not smart enough to find your way to the union building, I’ll be showing you guys the route there. Now let’s all form a nice conformist line so we can head out.”

Richard and Big Head joined the crowd and made their way to the Stanford campus. In the student union, the food vendors were offering free samples as promised, but the crowd was so packed that neither of them were able to push their way forward to any of the counters that offered anything especially appealing. Richard did manage to grab an apple, though, and Big Head an oat bar.

On another floor, long lines of tables were arranged, each lined with a vinyl tablecloth, dangling banners emblazoned with names of student organizations. Some had large tri-fold posterboards, some had moving robotics, some had one or two or three representatives handing out goods or chatting with interested students. 

As he walked around taking in all the stimuli, getting distracted by a cool gadget or a chipper student representative, a table bearing a rainbow flag with the words Gay-Straight Alliance caught his eye. Behind it a tall, thin boy, dressed smartly in slacks and a button-up, tone bright and spirited despite his apparent pallor, handed out pamphlets and condoms alongside a girl with short hair and piercings. Richard and Big Head moseyed through the hall, eyeing the posterboards and taking free flash drives and sunglasses and even signing up for a couple mailing lists, using his new student email rather than his personal one and writing his other student information in the margins. But his head kept turning back to that rainbow table as they moved about the room. It wasn’t just rainbows, he saw. There were symbols of ♂ and ♀ and ones he didn’t even recognize, and flags striped in an array of harmonious colors.

What would Big Head think about him approaching an LGBT table when he’s surrounded by all this tech? The guy didn’t seem to be a bigot, from what Richard could tell… but Richard wasn’t actually all that interested in the politics of the organization anyway; he was here to become an _engineer_ , dammit, he didn’t have time for that activism stuff. Maybe it was best not to chance it, unless he’s somehow able to conveniently lose Big Head in this crowd. Hell, Table Guy probably has a boyfriend anyway. Or a girlfriend. He could be bi. Bisexuals are allowed to be part of the alliance, right? Or, for that matter, he could even be straight.

The night ended, and the two of them headed back home. That’s how he would have to think of that tiny dorm room, now, of this Valley. Richard remembered the way back to the dorms, which was good because Big Head _hadn’t_ remembered his map, and Richard never grabbed one in the first place.

He set his alarm and settled into bed. Classes would start tomorrow, bright and early at 8 -- hey, it would be fine, classes started that early in high school, right?


	2. Chapter 2

A cacophonous buzzing interrupted Richard’s dream. He reached out to snooze it once -- _just nine more minutes_ \-- then he rolled out of bed.

First class of the day: Programming in C++. He already had a bit of experience playing with the language, but until now most of his projects had just been little websites and games.

Richard got dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, appropriate for the waning summer months that were nonetheless still scorching. He padded down the hall to the bathroom, where he brushed his teeth and smoothed out his curls. There was black metal music blasting from his RA’s room, which he thought was pretty rude, this early in the morning. He wasn’t going to complain about it, though, especially not to the RA himself.

Once he’d gotten ready, he headed out to campus again, carrying his computer and school supplies in his backpack. His computer class was held in a large lecture hall, and he took a seat at the edge of the center aisle, a few rows up from the front. These desks were so small -- he couldn’t even fully fit a piece of paper on one without it hanging over the edge.

Next was English, in a similarly large lecture room. Two TAs were handing out syllabuses and course packets. He took the handouts from -- oh god -- it was the boy from that GSA table at yesterday’s event. He couldn’t look him in the eye, and he was sure he had a full blush as he took the papers from his hands.

He took his seat, and Dr. Belson introduced the TAs.

“This here is Patrice,” He indicated the peppy red-haired girl, “And this is Jared.”

Table Guy moved as though he wanted to interject something, but Dr. Belson was already speaking on.

“If you have section on Thursday, your TA is Patrice, and if it’s on Friday, you’re with Jared.”

Richard double-checked his schedule. Friday. He dug through the handouts and crossed out where it said “Donald Dunn” to write “Jared” above it. Just to make sure he’d remember. It would be just too embarrassing to call him by the wrong name. Oh, he’d done his undergrad at Vassar, he saw, and his Master’s in Texas.

On Tuesday and Thursday were a math class that was suggested to be taken alongside the intro CS course, and a gen ed science course. Then, on Friday, he had his English discussion section, in a small classroom rather than a lecture hall. Richard took a seat in the back corner where he could squirm and hide his face unobserved.

“Who here is an English major?” Jared asked to start the class, raising his own hand and looking about the room. “No one? Well, that’s ok. What do you suppose the value of literature is? It’s fun to read books, certainly, but more than that, literature shows us what it is to be human. When you’re reading about falling in love, or roaming in adventure, or being scolded and struck, those are all human experiences. We can understand those experiences, even when we’d think the author’s life and culture to be entirely different from our own. Of course, there’s also a place for analysis and interpretation, learning the skills to articulate and defend your ideas.”

After discussion, his first week of classes was over, and Richard returned to his room. When he sat down to get started on his first assignment, a database with dummy figures and various searching and sorting functionalities, all he could think about was jumping that TA’s bones -- an array of fantasies each more outlandish than the last.

The semester passed in that way, Richard chugging energy drinks and coffee to tackle his schoolwork, or procrastinating and playing games or idly browsing the web, until midterms came around.

He was scheduled to meet with Jared in his office to talk over his essay. Out of the class’s novels, he chose to write his paper on _The Picture of Dorian Gray_. It wasn’t something he would have picked up of his own volition, but Jared seemed to like it, so he read it carefully and critically.

Richard roamed the halls of offices, trying to find his TA’s door. God, this place was worse than an Escher drawing. Finally he found the office, a few doors down from Dr. Belson’s. Their appointment was on the books, but he couldn’t just barge in, could he? He knocked at the door, and Jared answered.

“Hi, Richard, thanks for coming. You can come on in.” Jared opened the door wide and stepped back to let Richard inside. There were two desks in the office, each piled high with documents. Damn, Dr. Belson must really work these two hard. Jared took a seat at one of the desks, and motioned for Richard to take the chair that was set up beside it. He had a copy of Richard’s draft printed out, marked up in red ink.

“I think you’ve hit on something really insightful, here, Richard. I want you to develop your ideas a bit more in this here paragraph --” Jared indicated a short paragraph of only a few lines which was circled in red -- “and I think your logic would flow a bit better if you switched these sections around.” He showed Richard where he had a numeral II circled next to a paragraph on the second page, and a numeral I on the fourth. He turned the pages so the text faced Richard and offered the document with both hands.

“Ok. Thanks.”

“Really, this is some great work, Richard. Go ahead and make those changes, and keep refining it. I’m looking forward to reading your final draft.”

“Ok. I will. Thanks, Jared.”

Richard bolted out the door and navigated to the closest bathroom he could find. Actually, he couldn’t find one at all on this maze of a floor, but he had a class in this building, too, and he knew where the bathroom was on that floor. He dashed up the stairs and into a stall, and got onto his knees.

After a few hoarse dry-heaves, nothing else came up, but he wiped his mouth anyway and headed back out to his dorm.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got to thinking that I should add a warning here, so please be aware that there are mild consent issues in this chapter.

The semester was winding down, and Richard traded his summer shorts for fall jeans and jackets.

For his programming class, he had a group project with his classmate Dinesh. Before, he’d always taken on the entirety of group work himself, unimpressed by his classmates’ shoddy work. But this wasn’t high school -- Dinesh was also a Stanford student, and, he figured, he should probably also be putting in some effort not to come off as such a condescending elitist prick.

Dinesh lived in the same building as Richard, so they agreed to meet on Richard’s floor to work together.

“Fucking Gilfoyle,” Dinesh said as soon as he entered the common area, where the RA sat in a loveseat with his back turned to the room, watching an episode of South Park on the TV. Gilfoyle didn’t even turn around, just raised a hand to flip off Dinesh behind him.

Richard decided it would be best not to stir them up further -- the two clearly had animosity between them. So he suggested that he and Dinesh get started on their group assignment. Dinesh was easier to work with than he thought he’d be, Richard was happy to notice, and by evening they finished and submitted the project.

“Hey, some of us are planning to go bar-hopping tonight, wanna come?” Dinesh asked as he packed away his laptop and notes.

“Oh. Uh. That sounds fun, but. I can’t. I don’t have a fake ID or anything, so.”

“Wait, you don’t have a fake?” Gilfoyle asked. He did turn around to address Richard, now, taking a swig from a bottle of beer.

“Well, no. I mean, I like drinking just fine, but I never figured it would be worth the effort to forge a fake ID, or pay someone else to do it, just to get into a bar.”

“Hmm,” Gilfoyle responded, and headed to his room.

When the door had closed, Richard ducked his head conspiratorially and asked Dinesh, “Hey, do you know why someone like him would even become an RA?”

“Oh, he’s just in it for the free room and board. You know he calls his room his “lair”? Such a fucking edgelord.”

Gilfoyle came back out, and handed Richard a small, stiff card. It had his student ID picture on it, and insignia of Georgia. He was 22-year-old Casey May, now, apparently.

“Oh. Well, I guess I will be coming, then. Thanks, Gilfoyle.”

“Don’t mention it.”

He sat back down and kept watching his show, beer in hand.

Downtown was a bit too far from campus for a leisurely walk, so Richard and Dinesh took the bus and met up with another handful of CS students. After visiting a few bars and having more than a few beers, Richard was drunker than he’d been in his life.

The group was bonding over life anecdotes and banter, stumbling through the streets. They passed a coffee shop, where Richard spotted Jared gathered around a table with two others -- probably collaborating grad students, judging by the novels and papers and laptops strewn about the shared tabletop. Jared lifted his coffee cup from the saucer to take a drink, one hand still typing as he did so.

“Hey, guys, I’m just gonna. Hang back. If that’s alright with everyone.”

Dinesh cocked an eyebrow but said, “Sure, Richard,” and he and the rest of the group went on their merry way.

What exactly was his plan here? Casually walk inside and greet him? No way, Jared was already there with friends, and Richard could barely form a coherent sentence when he was sober and they were talking in class. He paced about, fidgety and anxious, sat on the edge of a planter on the sidewalk and tapped his foot. He checked the time on the front face of his flip phone – oh, the coffee shop was just about to close. That would be his chance! Convincing himself that he _wasn’t_ a stalker, he flipped up his hoodie and watched the group pack away their materials, return their dishes to the counter, and head out the door.

“Oh, Jared! Good evening!” Richard managed not to slur out too badly.

Jared looked startled, and glanced around until he saw Richard rising from where he’d sat down. “Oh! Good evening, Richard.”

“How’re ya doin’ t’night?” Richard walked over to Jared, boldly swung a hand out to caress up Jared’s arm.

“Oh, I’m doing just fine. Hang on a moment, please. Monica, Abed, how about we just table this for tonight? We’ll be able to get some better work done when we’re running on good sleep, not coffee.”

His friends agreed to meet up later, and he hugged both of them goodbye.

Once they got into their respective cars and drove off, Jared asked him, “Richard, are you drunk?”

“Maybe. It’s a secret.” He grabbed for Jared’s -- god, they’re so big -- hands, and swung them playfully. “Come back here with me and I’ll tell you.”

Richard still held one of Jared’s hands as he turned around and led him into an alleyway. Goddamn, he was being _bold_ tonight, he should really just be drunk all the time if it let him act like this.

In the alley, Richard pushed Jared back against a wall and lifted his face to _finally_ kiss him, just as he’d been dreaming about for months. Jared’s mouth tasted like coffee, but Richard’s mouth probably tasted like alcohol, so he figured it evened out. Jared responded to his kiss, opening his mouth to it and playing at Richard’s lips with his own lips and tongue. Richard followed suit to deepen the kiss, and reached out to Jared’s pants, fingers stroking against the growing swell there.

This seemed to shock Jared out of the moment, and he pulled away to lean his head back against the concrete wall. “Richard, stop. Please.”

“C’mon. I know you want this too. The way you look at me, the, the fucking _Picture of Dorian Gray_. This,” He gave another little vindictive squeeze.

Jared ran his fingers through Richard’s hair, up under his hood, and Richard nuzzled into the touch, dropping his hand as Jared had asked.

“Richard, I’ll tell you: you’re not wrong. But we can’t do this right now.”

“Well, Jared, where I’m from, in Oklahoma, I’m from Tulsa, you know, the age of consent is 16. So I’m _beyond_ legal.”

"Richard, Richard, it's not about age of consent, I know you're an adult, you're here living on your own and you're doing great as a student. But there's a power imbalance between us --"

“ _Power imbalance_?” Richard whined, “You’re, you’re a fucking TA. You’re a student, just like me.”

Jared ignored the provocation, continuing, “And you’re drunk. Come on, I don’t live too far from here. Let’s go home and you can sleep this off.”

Ok. The night would still be salvageable. Jared was taking him back to his place, Richard could still seduce him. Richard stumbled alongside Jared as they walked down several blocks, bad enough that Jared ended up wrapping an arm around his waist to steady him. Finally they reached a large, stately brick house with a beautiful lawn. Whoa, is this guy, like, loaded?

“Whoa, are you, like, loaded?”

“Oh, no,” Jared laughed, “This is my friend Gertrude’s house. She lets me live here with her in exchange for my services.”

“Services”? Does Jared do sexual favors for little old ladies in exchange for a place to sleep? That question he didn’t ask, thank god.

As Jared unlocked the door, he went on, “She’s an author, so I edit her manuscripts before she sends them to the publisher. Really, it shouldn’t be enough to pay for rent, but we keep each other company, too. Come on, my room is this way.”

Oh god -- Jared’s _room_? “Actually, can you show me to your bathroom?”

Jared led him down the hall, and Richard darted in, didn’t close the door behind him, and threw up into the toilet bowl.

“Oh god,” he moaned, flushing down the mess and dropping to his knees to rest his head on the seat.

He heard Jared rustling around behind him, and then he was there running a soothing hand over his back and offering him a dosage cup filled with mouthwash.

Richard swished it in his mouth, spit into the toilet, and flushed again.

“Are you feeling alright? Do you need anything else?”

“Just… just take me to bed.” He wasn’t even going to waste his thoughts thinking about how suggestive the sentence was.

Jared led him to the bedroom and pulled out a folded pair of flannel pajamas from his dresser. “Here, you can wear these. Really, it’s fine, it’s an extra pair. Good night, Richard.”

Though Jared and Richard were both quite slender, Jared was still taller than him, and he had to pull the pants all the way to his natural waist for them to fit comfortably. After he got changed, Richard passed out in Gertrude’s house and Jared’s bed.


	4. Chapter 4

His heart was pounding and his head throbbed. Was this a hangover? He’d never had one before. And where was he, anyway…? Oh god. Last night came flooding back to him. He… he’d _molested_ Jared. What was he going to do now? It was already too late to drop the course. Maybe he could get his discussion section switched to Thursday with Patrice. Oh fuck, maybe Jared would file a sexual harassment claim and get him kicked out of Stanford entirely.

Well, all he could do now was change out of Jared’s pajamas and back into yesterday’s clothes. He folded the pajamas nicely and laid them on the bed. That was the _least_ he could do. Upon further consideration, he also arranged the sheets and blankets to make Jared’s bed -- something he never bothered to do with his own bed.

He left Jared’s room and was led toward the aroma of cooking breakfast. Gertrude’s house was covered in bookcases wall-to-wall. She had a set of good speakers in the front room but no TV, though there was a small CRT on the kitchen counter. Two places had been set at the table.

“Good morning, Richard,” Jared greeted brightly, “You can go ahead and sit, I’ve got breakfast just about ready.”

“Is Gertrude…?”

“She’s at breakfast with her daughter; it’s just the two of us this morning.”

It was… quite a relief. That he wouldn’t have to meet the woman whose house he drunkenly stumbled into and whose editor he assaulted. He took a seat at the table and Jared served Richard and himself hash browns with peppers and onions mixed in, and toast with jam.

Over breakfast they chatted about Jared’s research and the kinds of birds he saw on campus, and about Richard’s ideas and his student life. It was surprisingly… easy. Comfortable. Domestic. When they were done Richard helped him wash the dishes, and when Jared drove him home, Richard didn’t try to kiss him goodbye.

In class, Jared engaged with him just as enthusiastically as ever. When finals came and went, Richard had passed all his classes easily. He flew back to Oklahoma for winter break, told his family all about Stanford, and flew back again at the end of January to begin the spring semester.

In his room, sitting on his bed, he opened his computer in his lap and composed an email. There was no way he was about to invite Jared to this dinky dorm room, and renting a hotel room would be too obvious, so he asked him out for coffee. On their date they exchanged phone numbers, and they kept in touch throughout the semester.

Before May, Richard accepted a job offer from a startup in town that he’d applied to, and he dropped out of Stanford. Research and academia weren’t going to be the path for him, and he didn’t need the credentials of university to get a job in the industry -- he just needed to show that he could code, and he could _damn well_ code. He rented a studio apartment, not much more area than the dorm had been, but at least now he didn’t have to share the square footage with a roommate.

At the semester’s end, Jared defended his dissertation and earned his PhD, and Big Head was, somehow, awarded an honorary one. Jared took a faculty position at Stanford, where he researched diaries and letters and homoerotica, and taught about them to CS and Liberal Arts students alike. He mortgaged a condo, and there he taught Richard how to feel good in ways he’d never done before.

They took day trips to San Francisco where they visited museums and ate at restaurants and walked across the Golden Gate Bridge. They talked through nights and brought each other coffee when they needed to meet a looming deadline. Richard spent the night more and more at Jared’s condo, and finally let the lease on his studio lapse entirely.


End file.
